Would you like clones with that?

I am generally a progressive and open-minded guy when it comes to trying new things. But mass produced cloned meat is somewhere that I don't think I want to go and where I personally draw the line...A report in today's Washington Post suggests that the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has indicated that it might permit the sale of meat and dairy from cloned animals, and is poised to endorse marketing mass-produced animals for public consumption.

This story reminds me of experiments from Brazil in the late seventies and early eighties involving exfoliants and mutated cattle being produced by some well known multinational corporations.

I am not sure whether I should be relieved or concerned by the statement from the FDA spokesman:

"Our evaluation is that the food from cloned animals is as safe as the food we eat every day," said Stephen F. Sundlof, the FDA's chief of veterinary medicine, who oversaw the risk assessment.

I suppose I should be re-assured because "Clones are just clones. They are not genetically engineered animals."

Now I know why all the big burger chains are putting double whoppers and Big Macs on the menu. How long before cloned meat becomes the next transfat to lead consumer boycotts and changes in eating habits? Or maybe, just maybe I should look into investing in that Chernobyl-area cattle ranch.